What’s the best money you’ve ever spent?

What’s the best money you’ve ever spent? (Money you think was particularly well spent, that is.)

This generated over 200 responses. Sample of those related to children:

No question, the extremely high price tag of buying our eggs, creating embryos and having women carry them to term for us. Worth every penny though. Nothing better in the world than children!

[bunch saying “private school”]

The Paperwork and admin fees of adoption

IVF [my jet-owning physician friends will be happy to read this!]

Car potty with three kids under 7. Best $20 spent.

[inspiration for the not-yet-parents] The Lice lady who came to our house and spent 5 hours on O’s head when he was little!

Divergence of responses from those with female versus male first names:

My divorce

yes, amen, my divorce also.

God bless the broken road

on my very worst day I can always say, “well, at least I’m divorced!”

[male] Getting a vasectomy.

[male] The prenuptial agreement for my first marriage. [but he did it again? note that a prenup wouldn’t have cut down on any of the litigation depicted in the movie Marriage Story; see also Massachusetts Prenuptial Agreements for why these have no effect on the most common and intensive family court lawsuits]

The original poster’s friends are nearly all righteous denouncers of Donald Trump and the Hate for which He stands, yet only one person out of 200 said anything about charity:

change I gave to a homeless man

Responses such as “Private Disney World Guide” and other personal luxuries were common, on the other hand.

Readers: What would you say to this question?

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11 thoughts on “What’s the best money you’ve ever spent?”

Our large family, all carried to term (or close to) by my wife and fertilized naturally by me, without exception enjoy our all black (tinted windows) 2014 Police Pursuit Ford Explorer purchased on GovDeals for 6K (@156K miles). Dad loves driving an hour+ to Nashville with few brave souls willing to pass (I am also **forced** to drive a little faster than typical so traffic doesn’t back up behind me). Mom loves that other drivers show her new 17 year old inexperienced driver some respect (and the trunk space for groceries). A bunch of other kids think police cars are cool and like the sound it makes when Dad hits the gas. The 13K New Holland skid steer (ebay) comes in a close second (smokes a little). Thanks for asking Phil!

I’m surprised nobody said something like: “When we first got engaged in 1997, we were young, reckless and in love, so instead of an expensive engagement ring we bought 250 shares of AMZN IPO at $18 and held them through the three splits (6/98 2:1, 1/99 3:1, 9/99 2:1). Now those 3,000 shares are worth $5,594,910, which should just about cover our divorce.”

And hey, maybe they could be convinced to stay together just to watch their AMZN stock keep growing, instead of paying the lawyers. Open marriage, easy peasy. If Investopedia’s fantasy comes true and Amazon maintains a 25% annualized growth rate until 2028, AMZN would do $1.938 trillion in annual revenue with a stock price of $15,759. Assuming no further splits, the initial $4,500 would then be worth a cool $47,277,000. More than a million percent ROI. If you can’t have a happy marriage with that, time to give it up. OTOH, Bezos and his wife couldn’t tough it out together with over 100 times more than that, so what do I know about love?

A dominatrix. It would have eliminated a lot of grief to have spent the money 30 years sooner, but western culture & religion are an attack on common sense. There really are plenty of feminist fish in the sea, but you have to pay for them.

My wedding, gifts spent on my wife, and my children and their education. And simple inexpensive tools like our $11.99 2 person crock pot and our $78 toaster oven which also acts as a rotisserie. I’m also thankful for our 2005 Honda CR-V which lasted 10 years and amassed 205,000 miles before being totaled by another driver.

Weekly house keeper when kids were home and my wife was working. They cleaned the whole house so we were not stuck trying to do this on weekends.

Took my two teenage kids and my wife on a 15 day bus tour of Europe. We did 8 countries and saw and learned a bunch. Even got blessed by the Pope in Vatican square. Rode the hovercraft right up on the beach and saw the white cliffs of Dover, etc.. It was an amazing tour.

I’d have to say my annual trips to the Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting in Omaha, plus associated books on value investing, Warren Buffett, and Charlie Munger. It’s not just the investment advice, it’s the overall business and life philosophy. Great stuff.